THE NEST IN THE PASTURE SPRUCE. 



THE LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE. 



OUT in the half-cleared New England pasture, where check- 

 erberry leaves glisten on the hillocks, and, in spring, rhodora 

 grows among the pools in the hollows, stands the old pasture 

 spruce, not tall and stately like its forest brothers, but a 

 sturdy, knotty tree that reaches its long arms out to shelter 

 the sheep and cattle on hot August noons. In a thousand 

 N.ew England pastures stand just such spruce trees, among 

 the clumps of bayberry and huckleberry bushes. In many 

 of them a gray-and-white bird must have her nest, as she does 

 in this. Not many birds care for such an exposed place, 

 which must seem like living on a lighthouse far out from 

 land; but this bird seems to prefer that isolation. In eight 

 nests of which I have records near my old Maine home, six 

 were found in pasture spruces, one in a birch tree, and one in 

 an apple tree, all isolated trees. 



The nest was always placed upon the south side of the 

 tree, saddled upon the broad, flat palm of an extended spruce 

 bough at about ten feet from the ground, and built with so 

 much superfluous material that one wonders at the bird's 

 patience in collecting it. An old one which I have just 

 weighed, weighs a quarter of a pound. If you wish to see 

 how much work it was to make it, try to pick up that weight 

 of hairs, dry grasses, and tiny sticks. 



But you can by no means judge the work she puts out 

 upon her nest until you work as she does, carrying them 



